1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to trays for food. More particularly, the invention relates to a tray for retaining food items during transportation.
2. Related Art
Food trays are commonly used at social functions where food is served, such as parties and receptions. At gatherings where family and friends are asked to bring a dish of food, these dishes vary in content of solids and liquids. In either case, the transportation of such foods in a vehicle to and from the gathering can be difficult. Dishes are commonly placed in the floor board of the vehicle and have a tendency to slide around during transport resulting many times in spilling of the contents into the vehicle. Moreover, many of the food items/containers are hot. Consequently, transporting these to and from the automobile requires handling with hot pads and/or mittens.
Prior to the inventor's recent invention, attempts to prevent this from occurring include surrounding the food container with towels or other items to prevent the food container from sliding around on the floor board. Also, cargo retainers in the rear of vehicles, such as the trunk, were used to retain cargo within a predefined space within the retainer.
Some food trays of the prior art incorporate a flat surface portion and a cup-like portion formed in the upper surface of the plate for supporting both food and a drink container. Although the plates of this type are capable of supporting a drink container and some type of food container, they are not designed for transportation of various configured containers in a suitable manner to prevent spillage from occurring as a result of lateral G-forces acting on the transported food container.
The inventor's prior invention was an attempt to provide a solution to the problem by providing a pegboard tray for retaining food items during transportation. While this was an improvement, there remains a need to aid one in transporting food items within a container from one's kitchen to a vehicle. Further, there is a need for a suitable transportation device for food containers which can be readily inserted and removed from one's vehicle. There is a further need that such a device be aesthetically pleasing. The present invention aims to solve these needs.